USC Energy Research to Aid State in Compliance of New Clean Power Act

Making Energy Production Cleaner and More Efficient

Recently, President Obama announced the finalization of America’s Clean Power Plan
and called it the country’s biggest step toward combatting climate changes yet. The
plan sets the first-ever carbon pollution standards for power plants across the nation.
At the University of South Carolina, extensive research is taking place in the fields
of engineering, chemistry, earth sciences and beyond that directly will impact power
production and ultimately, combat climate change.

USC research is focused on, but not limited to, the following areas:

safely capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) released by power plants, storing it, and reverting
it back to useable fuels;

creating advanced materials that can withstand the hotter and therefore, more efficient
combustion environments;

effectively using batteries, hydrogen and/or fuel cells to enable the storage of large
quantities of energy produced by intermittent renewable sources such as solar and
wind;

developing “smart grid” technology that can instantaneously switch between base loads
supplied by power plants, intermittent power provided by renewable energy sources,
and stored energy from batteries and fuel cells;

examining the geological impact of drilling on natural gas methane hydrates in the
Gulf of Mexico; and

assessing how the development of offshore wind energy sites could impact human, marine,
and coastal environments.

studying advanced nuclear fuels for sustainability by improving resource utilization
and reducing the amount of used fuel that would need to be disposed of or recycled.

USC houses eight Centers of Economic Excellence, financially supported by the State
of South Carolina's SmartState Program and private funds, which are directly connected
to energy research.

One of those SmartState centers, SAGE (Strategic Approaches to the Generation of Electricity),
is working with power companies across the region as well as the state and federal
agencies to help implement the new rules and regulations set forth under the Clean
Power Plan.

“The State of South Carolina must comply with the new rules by 2022,” said Dr. Jochen
Lauterbach, SAGE director and chemical engineering professor. “We are working with
all the stakeholders to ensure that new technologies are being developed that will
help reducing CO2 emissions within this time frame.”

SAGE’s research focuses on:

efficiently combusting coal and natural gas at hotter temperatures to produce less
CO2,

developing advanced materials that can withstand these hotter temperatures to use
at power plants, and

converting the CO2 into chemicals or transportation fuels.

“Our goal is to reduce pollutant emissions from power plants by 10-20 percent by
developing novel materials while trying to understand the combustion chemistry at
a fundamental level,” said Lauterbach.

South Carolina also relies heavily on nuclear power with more than half of all electricity
generated within the state derived from nuclear power.

USC is at the forefront of research focused on advanced nuclear fuels and reactors.
Recently, the UofSC nuclear engineering program led by professor Travis Knight received
a $4-million federal grant to research ways to more effectively store used nuclear
fuel before it is disposed of in an eventual geologic repository or recycled as fuel
for future reactors.

“We are fabricating and testing new fuels to power our current reactors as well as
designing advanced reactors to more effectively recycle the used fuel and thereby
reducing waste,” said Knight. “Nuclear power is a safe, low carbon source of energy
and the work we are doing at USC is aimed to make it more sustainable. Nuclear power
is also a source of good jobs and economic development for the State. Our research
on advanced fuels and reactors will ensure that US maintains a competitive edge in
this important technology".

USC also created the Energy Leadership Institute which coordinates the work of researchers
across campus in energy and related fields, incorporating input from engineering and
computing, arts and sciences, public health, law and business.